Landscape design

Cacti among the volcanoes

The 2017 edition of the Scarpa Prize for Gardens focuses on the Jardín de Cactus, designed by César Manrique to draw attention to the extraordinary identity of the island of Lanzarote

With its rugged landscape of quarries and craters, agriculture and volcanoes, the Canary Island of Lanzarote is the protagonist of the XXVIII edition of the International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens, given out by the Fondazione Benetton Studi e Ricerche of Treviso. The Scientific Committee focused their attention particularly on the small and exquisite Jardín de Cactus, which was inaugurated in 1990 by César Manrique on the outskirts of the village of Guatiza.

“A place” – as the citation explains – “embodying the values of a cultivated landscape and representing a significant moment in the history of an island that has, on numerous occasions, come back from reversals and situations of fragility, discovering the economic means and cultural instruments required to construct innovative forms of settlement, outstanding agronomic practices, and aesthetic concepts linked to far-sighted policies”.

Located in the northeastern part of Lanzarote, the Jardín is surrounded by prickly pear plantations (Photo Andrea Rizza Goldstain, courtesy FBSR)

In fact the Jardín represents the reclaiming of a picón quarry (volcanic lapilli) that was left abandoned and used as a rubbish tip, which Manrique transformed into an extraordinary collection of cactus plants, using age-old local techniques like raising terraces, spreading volcanic ash and inventing ways to protect against the wind. The Jardín is part of the vast undertaking, initiated in 1966, by the Canarian artist and activist in collaboration with the local government and the artisans of Lanzarote, to safeguarding several extraordinary places, which later became the Centros de Arte, Cultura y Turismo, with the aim of managing the processes linked to tourism and raising social awareness of the geographic and historical-cultural exceptionality of the island.

The last work created by Manrique, the Jardín de Cactus is an example of an architectural project integrated into the landscape. (Photo Andrea Rizza Goldstain, courtesy FBSR)

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